Osha, Medicina Del oso, bear medicine, Ligusticum porteri

Ligusticum porteri:

most commonly called osha, significantly in Spanish 'oso'  is bear.

There is a deep connection with Ligusticum porteri and bear, across all the plant/people/place interface of the sky islands and montain southwest where Ligusticum porteri lives as low as 6500 feet in Nuevo Mexico but in general from 8000-11,000 feet. Strictly a mountain plant. It is found near or within groves of aspen, conifers, fir and oak.

Geographic range

: L. porteri is distributed throughout the Rocky Mountain range, spanning Montana and Wyoming in the north, through Colorado, Nevada and Utah, to New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico Chihuahua and Sonora.

   

Bear root is a perennial plant that greens out in the spring, grows its seed in the summer and then turns brown and dies back

in the fall. It was considered part of  Umbelliferae family, now renamed as Apiaceae family.   Known as the carrot/parsley family. The seeds and flowers have an umbellifer look about them hanging down in clusters.  

     The importance of the bear and the bear stories of Osu, osha, in Ligusticum porteri. One of the peoples who have lived with osha  in the Southwest are the Utes, and the Utes of stories of the bear which are important for understanding Ligusticum porteri. 

One of the stories of the Utes who live in southern Utah near Blanding, UT, is two brothers were out and about in the spring time hunting and gathering and they saw a bear in the standing upright and clawing, marking a the tree, making a loud scratching sound and digging around for roots.

The bear talked to these two brothers and taught them how to dance, and sing the bear dance. The Bear asked the two brothers to go back to their people and teach them the bear dance. To do the bear dance in the springtime when lightning and thunder renew the earth once again after a long winter.

The bear taught how to gather together with others and celebrate the energy of the spring the new life that comes the greening of the plants. Up to the present day the Ute people have kept this connection with the spring bear dance

at Sleeping Ute Mountain. It said that the dance is held in March when the first thunder and lightning signal the awakening of the mountains of spring.

The dance is opens with the rubbing of a notched stick making a sound that is said to be this the sound of the bear scratching on the tree in the spring time.

Dancing is a way of connecting to the flow of the energy of the earth, of the lightning in the spring time,  

and mobilizing connecting this event in a personal way with the group.

In the bear dance the cat man makes sure that any woman's request to dance is honored, the bear dance is a woman's choice and the when the woman will ask a man to dance that can't be turned down.

In the traditions of the Southwest there are stories of the bear woman that she-bear and this has been carried on into the present time.  

There's a strong female presence in bear and in the renewal of spring, and there is an honoring of this female prerogative in the place and in the fertility of the place that happens in the spring time.  

     

    In the folk tradition osha is considered a plant protection and this is also mentioned in an old ethnographic study on the Pirates In "Southern Paiute Shamanism" by Isabel T. Kelly published in 1939, she mentions Ligusticum called, paxu'rani was applied for snake bite and the roots rubbed on moccasins and carried as a talisman to avoid snakebite and for protection. 

It is a tonic not only for the body, but also has uses for the psyche: the heart and mind. 

      The Navajo also dwell in the area of Ligusticum porteri. They have stories that can only be told when the bear is sleeping and they determine that time from the lightning in the fall during winter and then when energy from zig-zag lightening returns,

the lightning in the spring this is the time when the healing generative energy of the earth returns. 

    Now I as I look osha  with only a few green leaves remaining.

I make sure that I scatter and plant the seeds around osha covering them with soil. There is a chill of coldness in the air, most of the aspen leaves the fallen and those that remain are yellow.

With the clouds running across the sky and another full moon it has the feeling of energy going back to the roots. This is the time to gather osha up on these high laying down mountain plateaus.

I am reminded of the bear with osha the long nights of winter. 

    Plants of Protection: Like yerba Santa, Eriodictyon angustifolium, osha is a plant of protection. As I mentioned earlier it is used both for an actual rattlesnake bite and also rubbed on the body on the soles of the feet, moccasins and or tied on the shoes to ward off rattlesnakes when traveling through areas where one is likely to meet a rattlesnake.

Question may be why would one need protection? And why protection from a plant? How can a plant protect me? Protect me from what? This is an important question because as we approach herbs and plants from a bioregional herbal perspective it becomes clear that not only do herbs nourish. Not only do herbs nourish in the sense of nourishing the body, of addressing imbalances, deficiencies and usefulness in a disease state, herbs herbal medicine and or preparations also enter into the spirit in the greater health of a person, the soul.

 In the sense of plants, as I explored earlier, plant/medicine and medicine plants: there is also the aspect of nourishing the greater body nourishing the mind the heart the spirit in a bioregional sense. As we live and take roots in a place it becomes important to visit the same place time and time and time again when gathering plants during all times of the year.

To not only see the plants in it's dried or prepared form but to see the living plant in all its phases. In this sense one is completing oneself within the bioregion by taking notice of the plant not only taking notice of the medicinal properties or energetics of the plant but also taking notice of the plant itself and what it can give. Listening to the plant itself and spending time with the plant develop the aesthetic sense of communication with the plant., and acknowledge the connection to the natural world around you. A lot of this information and knowledge has less to do with reading or studying and more to do with just spending time with the plants where they grow. Because as human beings we are intimately connected with the plant both in the present moment now and throughout our history. Within this folk tradition, because of this, we have plants that have developed a reputation within the historical context of bioregional  herbalism of nursing, nourishing  and protecting the spirit. Oso,  la Medicina del osa, medicine of the bear, Ligusticum porteri is one of these plants. Sometime the plant due to its scent and physical nature, or due to the power of smell can remind us instantly and immediately of a greater whole, a  greater reality. Can awakening us a sense of a larger context in which we are acting. Especially if we have sought the plants out ourselves,  in their own environments, spending time with them in the spring, summer, winter and autumn. They can be reminders. They can remind us that we have power and resilience to overcome the current situation and this can be a strength.  This can be the plants role as a talisman, a charm to ward off evil. Evil whether  rattlesnakes or sorcery which may or may not of been used against us. And here let's remember that sorcery and witchcraft has to do with peoples view of us. Sorcery is an attempt to place a concept of self upon us that does not correlate with our inner nature and current situation. Often times a self concept can be an implanted thought.  That places us in a limitation which is no longer valid. So when we are in a time of stress or turmoil or crisis. The plant can remind us of our resilience in the face of crisis by placing us in a larger context.

This contextual shift is part of the work of plants. Much of our anxiety stress and issues have to do with the purely human realm,

and although we spend much of our time in this place our depths of our being go much deeper than that and part of the healing energy the plants can summon is this reminder that we are bigger than the situation we face.

     Plant energetics:

Desert Lavender, Hyptis emoryi

Desert Lavender.
Hyptis Emoryi
Lamiaceae (Mint Family)

        Hyptis Emoryi, Desert Lavender, Bee balm. Likes to grow near bursage, ocotillo, creosote and Encelia.

It for me is an entrance plant and communicates transition. It feels fertile and cooling and the buzz buzz buzz of the bees tells you 'something's going on', 'come over here take a look'. It calls and speaks with fragrance, lavender flowers and dull green leaves that fold up.

Hyptis is loud and in your face, and it's fragrance is over the top, overpowering and hard to miss. 

       For me the fragrance takes me back to better, brighter days, children's voices laughter, the soft gargle of water. Barefoot walking in soft moist sand, the soft folds lingering beneath granetic schist walls red and stoic. A softness and female place connected to the father aloof and distant on high.

Desert Lavender is moist wet cooling and protective. It's the intention to nourish and protect, as a gambel's quail mother protects her brood. 

         Protection is a big part of Desert Lavender. Because we're not too much different than the gambel's quail youngin wandering in the desert pecking at seeds and catapillers, it's easy to get distracted and forget about the Sonoran gopher snake waiting hungry for a meal, waiting for baby gambel's quail.

It's not bad to be eaten clean, with one swoop, sudden and eternal like a dust devil, lightning crack boom. That's not what what we require protection from. 

          It's the slow subtle rotting death that overtakes us gradually and imperceptibly with a dullness and loss of function, sin. There you need protection, it's good to know how to protect yourself from contagious toxic stuff. Like a lingering cough that's uneasy and is a little more than biological. Losing your heart, desert lavender is good for that. Keeping us well, more than well, life abundant.

Hyptis Emoryi, Desert Lavender, growing on bajada desert floor near Santa Catalina mts, Tucson, AZ

O Maria Virgine

O glorious Virgin Mary, in your Holy Rosary, you gave the Mystery of your Queenship of heaven & earth.

The stars about your head, standing on the moon just as the picture shows.

Grant that all who say your glorious mysteries today, may be granted a vision soon, of your beauty and your queenship of heaven and earth,

that they may see and believe. I truly know you my mother and queen, but they have not yet seen, in Jesus name amen

O Maria Virgine, in Rosarii dedisti Reginae caeli & terrae uestrae singulare mysterium. Sidera circa caput tuum, stantes super luna sicut ostendit. Dicentes quod omnes tuae mysteriis hodie per visum concedi primum Reginae caeli et terrae tuae et ut videamus et credamus. O regina, mater scio vere, sed nondum vidi, in nomine Iesu amen

is was and will be. by Paul Manski

is was and will be,

going gone to volcano.
creative destructing, 

dangerous and uplifting, 

I'm sure you'll change creative one.

because so much that is, 

is a drag and a burden and must be levelled.

with blood and fire 

with lobelia and humming bird songs.

you a cousin of hummingbird

always sipping nectar

inquenchable-the journalist going 

dream to dream on the back of humpback whales and airplanes,

smooth firm muscled sweaty warm body.
 there's so much to say

...why was she walking along the frozen green river, near the cora Y, with a black dog?

15 years warm healing mud of paria river rubbed on flesh perfect and ancient piñon pines wait for rain

that seldom comes.

When it comes it fills the spring on the cockscomb, 

cliff rose blossoms and mariposa lily 

i left turquise beads in the slick rock next to a great horned owl feather, 

much is sent in the between time

quiet  hours twilight,

 owl moves the dream time...
i saw antelope ground squirrel bones

In the owl scat left on a rock. 

we're eating and being eaten, 

sucking and being sucked,

 kissing and grasping with our tongue the words to say thanks,
thanks for the vows made in Big Horn mountains,

Above tree line on medicine wheel mountain
heard by the wind, 

fluttering and dancing,
 a piece of your fringed black leather jacket

...a piece of our hair tied with string

a piece of our songs and young giddy laughter.
we ate the heart of a road killed deer and fed the rest of the meat to wild black dog.

there were times when lava rocks barked coyotes words,

oil derricks pumping all night 

where the tipi was set up 

in Utah near Aneth,
we saw ghosts and old women 

they say in a circle around the fire

clockwise, sun-wise

on their Memorial Day 

speaking to dead lovers in tipis

we walked to Emma's grave

and talked to Charlie Hepworth

digging out irrigation canal

love is eternal and never dies,

 in that circle you sit perky breasts and smooth skin 

I could see young men there 

with thick black hair 

his horshoeing tools and a leather apron, tonight they'll share again a cup of kindness.

sing auld Lang syne and waltzing Matilda

She'll taste bitter musky salty taste in her mouth and

 he'll lay next to her exhausted 

could anything be any other way? .

..is was and will be forever...

Aralia racemosa, or just Aralia.

Aralia racemosa, or just Aralia. 

by Paul Manski

"This is one of the plants that you search for if you are an herbalist.

Or you think you want to be an herbalist. Or you are a realist who realizes that from beginningless time we go to plants when we are sick, to heal. To return to balance.

We eat the plants every day to live and in order to heal ourselves whether today, tomorrow or yesterday. we need the plant. we need the strong ones. Or you were a realist who  to wants to be an herbalist.

     The seasons are like saints and holy medals they bring us to where we need to be. Yet the seasons are the dividers for in each season everything changes. The leaves change, and transform  they fall on the ground or they turn yellow or they turn red or they come out soft and green and tiny. In short they change.

     So to find a strong plants those potent medicines that lurk in our memories like dreams just below and come to the surface at dawn like shadows. We need to find a teacher who will walk with us through the seasons and show us the place, the person, and the plants.

    In this bioregion there was an amazing man, who was able to gather others around him, and that learning and teaching goes on, Michael Moore, who taught and taught and walked sat and listened and talked and talked and sold the plants of the southwest. So in some sense everything comes from Michael Moore this herbalist who died in 2009, after awakening and sharing with so many this knowledge of the plants. This comes from Michael Moore and his notes and teaching on spikenard, 

-"Aralia racemosa

Chronic coughing with excess secretions; bronchorrhea; subacute cystitis with mucus in urine, no odor; as an adaptogen similar to Panax.

Chronic laryngitis with excess, abundant mucus.

Chronic pharyngitis with thick tenacious mucus.

Chronic bronchitis with profuse secretions and debility. Acute cough with faucial irritability, wheezing, dry mucus. Adrenal cortex hypofunctions.

Primipara, with irritability, distress in last trimester. - subanemic blood with hypersensitivities."

,because it comes from the same family as ginseng some people including Michael Moore see it, saw it in that light, 

-again quoting from herbalist Michael Moore;

-"The Spikenards are tonics, best in long-term use, and further offer the Ginseng-like effects of modifying metabolic and emotional stresses.", 

"The Aralia or Ginseng Family (Araliaceæ) is closely related to the Parsley- Carrot Family (Umbelliferæ or Apiaceæ), with the main differences being their solid stems, and succulent berries. With few exceptions, the Aralia Family grows in the greatest abundance in cold, wet forests, with acidic, humus-rich soil, and fruit that need constant moisture to germinate.

This makes them far less abundant or numerous than their more adaptable relatives, the Umbelliferæ."  -quoting Michael Moore.

    The eastern tribes the Chippewa, Cherokee, Iroquois have a consensus that the plant is used for colds for what we would describe as the flu or lung infections. In the ethnobotanical literature there's also a historical use for it as a women's for menses or issues with menstruation, and show how versatile in their materia medica, it is it was also used topically for wind wood infections for sprains for broken bones. Some where in there is also the use of it as a tonic, and for protection as we use Yerba Santa, the Chippewa used  a decoction of the root for protection,  "to drive away blue tailed swifts."

It's obvious from reading the ethnobotanical literature that this plant has some magic like Osha or yerba santa.

 Then with the plants, with someone showing you the plants when someone introduces you to a plant. There is some elements of a friend introducing you to an old girlfriend, I guess the question is how recent although it could be just as satisfying, the thought of being a sloppy second does enter-into it. There's also etiquette can you go out with a friends girlfriend? Is that OK?

And what's the role of the friend there's something like an element of being a pimp. Is she a hooker? Are you a John? And then there's that touchy question of virginity. Whenever you enter into the nuts and bolts of things it becomes complex. It's obvious from reading the ethnobotanical literature that this plant has some magic like Osha or yerba santa.

It's like meeting a celebrity at a restaurant, at an intimate restaurant and you want to walk over and introduce yourself or get a selfie. You also want to be a human being you don't want to impose on your celebrity friend. Maybe it would be better just to have the memory in your mind of haing seen them eating a slice of pizza, and leave it at that rather then getting a photographand interrupting their dinner. After all you don't want to be a paparazzi.

We all know what happened with Princess Diana. You don't want to chase the spikenard into a tunnel and kill it just to get a picture. You don't want to have to put to it to death. Yet you are an herbalist and probably paparazzi to boot.

And the teachers not so much a pimp as a teacher wanting to share and preserve the knowledge of the bioregion into the next century. Because as another teacher would begin his daily routine saying to me, "remember, you're one day closer to death". And it's true none of us are going to live forever. is it worth having information and knowledge disappear? 

    There's another story in the ethnobotanical literature. It had to do with a meeting in the 1930s in the Sierra Nevada mountains California.

There were two old men and these two old men were the last speakers of their language. And a noted ethnobotanist got them together so they could talk and he could record them so that their language could be preserved so that their words wouldn't die. At least that's how the ethnobotanist saw it. He was preserving the last of this noble culture, the words their language their history their stories. He assembled the primitive recording devices of that da, he had his students with notebooks present in the room and he brought in the two old men.  He  sat between the men. They looked at each other,  stared at each other for a long time, acknowledged each other, then they cursed one another,  and walked out.

Turns out they were rivals for the affections of a young woman many years ago. And whatever it is that happened meant that they could never speak or even look at each other ever again.  And they kept true to their heart to their culture to their way and never spoke again to one another.

That's how it is with plants you wonder am I doing the right thing? And really I asked the same thing today am I doing the right thing?"

By Paul Manski

Manzanita, Little apples, Arctostaphylos pungens

So here is Arctostaphylos pungens, Pointleaf manzanita, Family Ericaceae, little apples Manzanita. Rich red brown shiny bark, astringent sour leaves. A tree a bush, a friend reminds me of an anonymous spring somewhere in Southern Utah, a seep of water, canyon oaks, coolness and hair like water grabbing the minds eye. 

     Pale pink trumpet delicate flowers that bloom quickly in early spring.

For me always the smell of the manzanita leaves mixed with pinyon pine pitch, juniper and artemisia, sat on a piece of slick rock, wafting up and swirling around into the sky. Reminds me of prayers or intention like Kristina said, or dreams or blessing and protection.

With every dream or intention or prayer there is memories of dreams that were only dreams, no more no less, but dreams only. Smoke that didn't rise, fires that burned out, roofs that fell in leaving only rusted tin and walls.

     Manzanita is like that it's good for those itchy burning down there sorts of things that some unlucky are prone to, even though they wipe the right direction.

Moist warm hairy soft places are sometimes problematic for multiple reasons, manzanita leaf tea can help. 

     Then there's the apples, the little apples that tempted and nourished and guided us back in a dream, those fruits

are there for jam and tea and just to have and hold a tiny apple less than your baby finger nail, ripening in the sun. Nice to know and praise fertility and youth.

     But back to the name and burning dried manzanita leaves mixed with pine pitch and juniper branches. This is the bear. The north circling above, the hunter, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, the bear that circles upon which all the stars follow like shadows, like dreams, like prayers. Good to see manzanita again and in that pollen of spring a memory of hair sparkling like water

drawing the eye in closer and closer. Manzanita.

by Paul Manski